At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders asked such filmmaking luminaries as Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Yılmaz Güney, Werner Herzog, Susan Seidelman, and Steven Spielberg to ponder the question “Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” Forty years later—adopting the same minimalist, fixed-camera format as Wenders—Lubna Playoust poses the same question to a group of contemporary auteurs, including David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Lynne Ramsay, and Wenders himself. Together, Wenders’ Room 666 and Playoust’s Room 999 capture the unfiltered perspectives of pathbreaking filmmakers on the state of the industry as well as the upheavals brought on by various new technologies and methods of distribution—in the process touching on large-scale issues of politics, culture, and the meaning (and continued relevance) of cinema in two distinct eras, nearly half a century apart.

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Video Quality

Room 666 and Room 999 arrive on Blu-Ray courtesy of strong transfers from Janus Contemporaries. Both films are housed on one disc, but there are no signs of compression artifacts or other digital nuisances thanks to the brevity of both films. The major achievement of this release is the restoration of Room 666 after four decades in relative obscurity. The 16mm Original Camera Negative was scanned in 4K and was retouched, color-corrected, and finished in 2K resolution. The results are very impressive as the footage looks really great for its age and provenance. There are still minor specks of damage remaining, but this picture retains its original filmic qualities with a really admirable consistency.

Room 999 was captured via a digital camera in 2022, so it looks as impressive as any modern documentary should look when it is captured in a stationary single location. This footage looks incredibly crisp and clear at all points. The documentary primarily presents a natural color grading and detailed textures within the hotel room and the clothing of the interview subjects. The footage looks as technically pristine as you can get in high definition. Janus handles the encoding of both features with ease and allows them plenty of room to breathe. Janus Contemporaries has treated these documentaries very well on Blu-Ray.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray comes with a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 track for Room 666 and a strong DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track for Room 999 in the original mixture of languages that each hold up as well as you could hope. Room 666 has also had its audio cleaned up from the original analog magnetic tracks, and the results are pleasing. The track exhibits some very minor age-related humming and some hollowness with certain speakers, but the answers largely come through clearly without major distractions. For a film of this vintage filmed in a hotel room, it sounds great.

Room 999 was captured under similar conditions, only forty years later with upgraded technology. The audio equipment does a perfect job of capturing the subjects and making sure all of their words come through with the utmost clarity. The movie is centered on these monologues, and all of the moments come through clearly. Each audio track accomplishes exactly what it needs to. Optional English and English SDH subtitles are included, although it should be noted that you can only access the English SDH subtitles for English and non-English dialogue via the subtitle button on your remote control. Only the subtitles that cover non-English language dialogue can be accessed through the menu, so those who do not have a dedicated “Subtitles” button on your remote will have to work a bit harder to access them.

Special Features

The Janus Contemporaries Blu-Ray of Room 666 / Room 999 includes a leaflet featuring the essay “Room 666 / Room 999: The Cinema of Future Past” by Michael Joshua Rowin in which he provides some good insight into and analysis of the film and the filmmaker that helps highlight the deeper themes on display. The on-disc special features are as follows:

Meet The Filmmakers: A welcome 15-minute conversation with Room 999 director Lubna Playoust in which she discusses her first feature film, her inspiration to get into filmmaking, her feelings about Room 666, the influence of Wim Wenders, working with Cannes to set up the project, and much more.

Trailer: The 43-second trailer for Room 999 is provided here.

Final Thoughts

Room 666 and Room 999 are a pair of special documentaries that allow film fans to learn how a wide array of talented artists feel about the art form they have dedicated their lives to at a particular point in time. The answers vary slightly from person to person, but the way they weave together as a tapestry proves to be a very valuable, big-picture look at cinema as a concept. Having both of these documentaries together is especially valuable as you see how things have both evolved and stayed the same over the years. Janus Contemporaries has provided these films with a Blu-Ray that boasts a great A/V presentation and a nice additional featurette. If you are a cinephile who loves hearing from filmmakers, be sure to check it out. Recommended

The Janus Contemporaries edition of Room 666 / Room 999 is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Janus Contemporaries and The Criterion Collection have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.